Andrew Reisner gives a one-week course in Theoretical Reason

Profesor Andrew Reisner från McGill's University is visiting our department and will give a seminar in "Selected Topics in Theoretical Reason" 27-31 May. The course is open for all students on advanced level.

The course will be in English.

Course description

This seminar examines selected topics in the field of theoretical reason, which concerns the norms of belief and belief-like mental states. We will spend the first part of the seminar looking at some theories of belief. In particular, we will be considering whether all-out beliefs are best understood as being high-confidence credences (Lockeanism) or as being independent from credential states. We will then look at the two main philosophical motivations for strict evidentialism, the view that all normative reasons for belief are evidential reasons. Arguments against evidentialism will also be considered in some detail. Finally, we will look at the connection between direct doxastic voluntarism and possible kinds of normative reasons for belief.

The design of the seminar is such so as to give a coherent overview of the way in which views about how beliefs function connect to views about what kind of normative reasons for belief there are. A central theme will be to examine what role, if any, considerations arising from the goodness of having particular beliefs have in providing reasons for those beliefs.